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The Washington Post is running a story on the Obama Administration's attempt to get a scaled-back version of Bush's Real ID program passed and implemented. We've been discussing the Real ID program from its earliest days up through the states' resistance to its "unfunded mandate." "Yielding to a rebellion by states that refused to pay for it, the Obama administration is moving to scale back a federal law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was designed to tighten security requirements for driver's licenses... Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal and replace the controversial, $4 billion domestic security initiative known as Real ID... The new proposal, called Pass ID, would be cheaper, less rigorous, and partly funded by federal grants, according to draft legislation that Napolitano's Senate allies plan to introduce as early as tomorrow. ...the Bush administration struggled to implement the 2005 [Real ID] law, delaying the program repeatedly as states called it an unfunded mandate and privacy advocates warned it would create a de facto national ID."

A free people don't have to verify themselves to their government and the government has no intrinsic right to demand that of a person.

Sure they do, they need to make sure you're not some sort of psycho child molester who is walking the streets. Clearly you don't advocate keeping such criminally insane people like child molesters off the street, don't you? I mean, think of the children.

I'll never forget my first flight after 9/11. It was to a karate camp in Norfolk, VA (not the place to be walking through with weapons). Where Boston had ANG folks with puny little sidearms guarding the gates, the guys in Norfolk had big bad military folk with huge M4s and a serious disposition (I like guns, I just don't like other people having bigger guns than me). Anywho, we sit on this little puddle-jumper, and my instructor sits in the front row, pulls out a Black Belt Magazine, crosses his legs and starts reading. I'm watching as the stewardess finally catches the title of the magazine - 13 ways to defeat a boxcutter.

The return flight I was tied to my seat while I was sleeping. The stewardess behind me was none-too-pleased when I tore off 4 feet of duct tape to retaliate on said instructor, giggling like a school girl in the front of the plane.